Thursday, November 12, 2009

From Nazca to Cuzco

An incredibly beautiful road! Starts with deserts airpins (hot desert)than it keeps going up to 4000 meters, were we saw our first llamas and we had to wait for more than an hour for road works, making friends with all the truck drivers also stuck. Then lunch in Puchio a small village in the middle of nowhere, then the road kept going up to 4500m and it got so beautiful, and so cold and cloudy and it started snowing and we had to keep going of course...fun!But then we passed the weather and we started going to lower altitude trough a beautiful endless valley. It was too late to make it to Cuzco but there were not many places to stop for the night( as we were told). So we decided to push it to Abacay. So we arrived at dark to find big rocks, sticks, tires, branches in the middle of the road...then busses, trucks, cars, stopped along the way, then police, then a nice ongoing riot! A civil unrest due to the protest against the alleged corruption of the mayor of the city.After waiting for a while, hearing all kind of opinions on what to do or not to do, and a couple of moment where we thought all the hell was going to break loose,a kind cop offered to take us on a secondary road to avoid the blokade.OK. So we followed in the dark, on a super dusty dirt road up on the hills, the police car that took us to the road to Cuzco.At that point I was so tired that as soon as we saw an hotel sign we stopped in a very bizzare place. Where we had to wait for the room to be done, and for the food to be purchased...so we had the latest,crapiest dinner ever on a night stand and we watched the only channel available that had a obscure french movie with spanish subtitles. I was so tired that I could care less and I was soon snoring away. But in the middle of the night we got woke up from the sound of torrential rain...I forgot to mention that we had to park down a dirt road,and cross a field that at that point we thougth it was inevitably trasforming into a mud bath...more fun!It was actually ok in the morning, so we rush as fast as we could out of there. Had a little breakfast ( rice and pork!)and soon after that Karl got his first flat tire! Fun!But then all went well and now we are in a nice hotel in gorgeous Cuzco, two blocks away from the main square and right in front of an ice cream parlor.I had some breathing problems this morning and think I was suffering from altitude sickness but after chewing on a few hojas de coca I feel great!And ready for Machhu Pichu tomorrow!